Durandal is the legendary sword of Roland. It was said to have been forged by the even more legendary Wayland Smith, and Charlemagne was said to have received it from the hand of an angel. Roland received it either directly from Charlemagne or through a chain of wielders from whomever Charlemagne originally gave it to; it is said that it could cut through marble. According to most legends, at Roncevaux when Roland died, he attempted to destroy the sword so that the Saracen army could not take it, but he failed and therefore shielded it with his body. However, according to local legends in Rocamadour, he called on the Archangel Michael and threw it away from himself, and by the archangel's intervention, threw it several hundred kilometers, where it sunk into a stone wall in a cliff face in Rocamadour. It was from there put into the local chapel, but it was eventually stolen -- generally, Henry the Young King, the son of King Henry II of England, is thought to have done so. The town has ever since had a tradition of maintaining a replica to represent the original event, but the replicas have always been stolen. That tradition has apparently continued as well, since the most recent replica was recently reported stolen. This was a particularly puzzling theft, however, because nobody knows how it was done: this replica had been embedded high in the cliff face and chained to the wall.
In any case, despite the news reports Durandal was not stolen -- or to be more exact, it is not news that it has been stolen, because the original sword, whatever its provenance, was stolen long ago and has long since disappeared. The news is the curious theft, and it is indeed curious.
